The Crystal Ball Says?

[James Waters AKA. NineSpeed]

Given this countries current state of affairs, with political correctness running ramped, Korea's nuclear ambitions, the same said of Iran. The current leadership in Washington and the general attitude of the populace, What do you see this country looking like in 50 years? What do you see as a way to change that outlook? And finally are we as a people capable of making the changes you outlined?

[Shai Adair]

My crystal ball is amazing. Let me shake it.... there... now just waiting for the snow to settle. Okay, I can tell by the position of the penguins in conjunction with the sled that there's going to be a nuclear blast that throws the earth off of it's axis, breaking it's gravitational connection with the moon which in turn slingshots the earth around the sun, completely burning up everything on the planet. Wait - the polar bear is... never mind. He's toast, too.

[James Waters AKA. NineSpeed]

The bear will be fine, he has an ice cold Coke to drink, oh wait that is a different crystal ball.

[Rianna]

My magic eight ball just keeps saying "ask again later." It must have been made by the world governments.

[Blindogg]

You know what I think? Well tell me - cause I don't!!!

Seriously - if you were an American citizen in the year 1959 (fifty years ago) you would have had VERY SIMILAR concerns;

The Russians were about to blow us off the planet...there was some clown from Boston threatening to rule the country with all kinds of radical ideas and the general attitude of the populace was that things pretty much sucked since Harry Truman left office.

So what's different?

The kids are still listening to the worst music ever produced - much like my generation did...The unemployment rate is astronomical - much the way my father saw it...Forget about the price of gas.

In 1959 unemployment was at 6.8%...The federal debt was 287.5 BILLION dollars. (pretty high when you consider we weren't at war) and the average income for an American was a shameful $5,016.

So my response to this question is this...unless my crystal ball is going to tell me what this weeks power ball numbers are going to be I'm going to leave it in the drawer because it's the same tired crap that's been going on forever.

I think it's like this...most Americans have trouble dealing with change. They see things changing but fail to see that with change there are always equal amounts of improvement and declination.

Are your kids doing better than you did? I know mine is. Did your father make as money as you do? I know mine didn't. How about technology? Did your parents have a computer, HD TV or a cell phone. Hell, my mother STILL doesn't have a cell phone - she thinks they're too "new-fangled".

And guess what - fifty years from now our grandchildren will be spouting the same list of gripes...and they won't have any solutions either.

[James Waters AKA. NineSpeed]

Excellent response Blindogg. My grandfather once told me, "History is a marry go round you can never get off of". I think he was right. Why do we keep making the same mistakes over and over again? We have a history to study and see the mistakes that were made. You would think, we the intelligent beings on this spinning rock would say to our selves " selves, that shit didn't work the last time, I am pretty sure it isn't going to work this time either". But no. We do our impression of Goofy and say "duh, okey dokey"

I think we deserve the misery we deal with on a daily basis, Were to stupid to do otherwise.

[Stephan Loy]

Well, one thing never changes, and that is that Americans love to complain. Look at the responses so far and you'll see. Yes, all life seeks a sort of equilibrium; things prefer to stay the same. We like to talk about the good ol' days, but the good ol' days were never as good as we remember. But, change, like that other stuff, happens.
Think about it:
Fifty years ago, America was an industrialized nation. Steel, automobiles, textiles, and other manufacturing of all kinds. Not anymore. Most of that industry has gone off-shore. Ours is an information and service economy now. America was a much more socially stratified nation than it is today. We were in the middle of a racial knife fight, too. White people had power and, by gum it, were not about to give it up. Now, we're still a socially stratified society, but instead of people being forced into their strata, it has become a problem of their not wanting to leave their strata. Yes, racism and the other -isms still work their black magic, but so does self-segregation. White people still have most of the power, but they're somewhat more laid back about it. White people elected a president that doesn't look like them.
A hundred years ago, America was an agrarian nation. Most of the population lived on farms. Now, almost none of it does. Most of the people are urban.
One hundred and fifty years ago, America hardly existed. There was the east coast, the west coast, the south coast and dribbles in between, but most of the belly of America was wild and, if not up for grabs, seen to be ungrabbable.
That's a lot of change in only three iterations of fifty year spans.
Fifty years from now, white people will lose almost all power. They will become only the largest of several minorities. That is likely to represent a sea change in American political thought. Fifty years from now, we will have done very little worth mentioning about climate change. The ice caps will melt, releasing fresh water into the oceans, breaking down or diverting the existing ocean currents, and dropping the northern hemisphere into the first noticeable steps of a new ice age. That in itself will spark some nasty consequences. Our coastal cities will start falling underwater. Our farming seasons will become shorter, and we'll have problems with Canada, which will likely start thinking it would like to move south. But we'll also experience a new kind of war, the kind where we fight not over oil, fraternity or religion, but over water. We will have landed people on Mars, too.
A hundred years from now, did you see The Day After Tomorrow? The science in that flick was real, even the arctic superstorms. They just bastardized the science by making things happen at a preposterous rate and on a preposterous scale. A hundred years from now, that science fiction movie will be science fact. We won't have bothered returning to Mars. We will have located Earthlike planets in other solar systems and will have sent a few robot probes their way.
One hundred and fifty years from now, nobody will care anymore about all those fears from climate change. Society will adapt to the new geopolitics and new natural pressures of climate change. We'll still be waiting to see other Earths in other solar systems. Space travel is slow.

[Blindogg]

Sounds to me like the old song by Zagger and Evans - "In the Year 2525".

I love a good doomsday prophecy.

[Johnell McLean]

Well, in 50 years I will be in my 80's and my children will (hopefully) have grown up and not live with me. I only hope they visit me regularly and that I am not in a nursing home. Then again, I am a smoker and am overweight, so I hope to live another 50 years.